


oh simple thing, where have you gone?

by womanaction



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Season/Series 05, multiple POVs, toes the line between gen and ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-29
Packaged: 2018-11-20 12:38:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335773
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/womanaction/pseuds/womanaction
Summary: AU from 5x13 "Basic Sandwich"; Shirley finds out she needs to leave sooner, and a cascade of changes results.





	1. if you have a minute why don't we go

**Author's Note:**

> I struggled with how to label this fic, which was conceived as an AA fic, added in some JB, and ended up incorporating a lot more gen and JA elements than originally planned. I ended up taking it out of the JA tag after a comment to that effect but there is significant JA content within.

She manages to push it out of her mind for a little while, caught up in that rush of planning and doing and _saving_ Greendale. But she’s a grown woman, and she knows that those kinds of unpleasant thoughts don’t stay buried. It’s like trying to hold a pool noodle underwater, an experiment her boys had tried on more than one occasion. The second the pressure eases off –

“Hey, Shirley! Are you okay? You’re kinda hanging over here by yourself.”

Annie’s a sweet girl, even if she does have a tendency to get up in people’s business when they don’t want her to. Shirley can sympathize. That doesn’t make it any easier to deal with when you’re on the other end of it though. “Yes, I’m fine,” she says as sweetly as she can.

The younger woman is not dissuaded. “Really? Because you don’t really…seem fine.” _Dammit,_ she thinks, then immediately sends up an apology prayer. Jesus will understand. She loves the group, but they would try the patience of the saint, and in her more honest moments she knows she’s far from being one of those.

She takes a breath, steeling herself. “I…received a phone call earlier today,” she says carefully. “About…my father.”

“Is everything okay?” A crease appears in Annie’s forehead.

“He’s been sick for a while,” she confesses. “But lately things have gotten a lot worse and, well, I don’t know how much longer he’ll be okay on his own.” She hopes Annie can read between the lines. After this roller coaster of a day, she’s not sure she’s capable of saying those words out loud.

It even hurts a little to think it. _Leaving Greendale_. The place that’s been there when she’s lost everything. More than once, too. She sometimes thought of it as her own little slice of heaven on earth, imperfect as it was. A place where she was accepted, supported, and loved.

“He’s in Atlanta, right? You went to see him for Christmas.”

She didn’t expect Annie to remember that. Shirley swallows the lump rising in her throat. “Yes.”

Leaving not just Greendale, but everything. The group. Her church. And, unless a miracle happens, Andre and the boys too.

Annie’s staring at her with those big Disney eyes now. She looks like she’s about to cry. Shirley feels almost defensive. If anybody should be crying, it’s her. She’s the one looking at packing up her whole life, starting over yet again.

But then Annie’s lower lip wobbles and she feels her own eyes well up in response. “I know,” she says, mostly to herself. “But I have to do what I have to do.”

The younger woman wraps her arms around her suddenly and tightly. Shirley squeezes back, momentary irritation fading away into deep fondness. She loves this place, and these people, and the woman she is when she’s with them. She doesn’t believe in coincidences, so it’s no coincidence that her life fell apart again so soon after graduation.

She hears Abed’s alarmed voice ask, “What’s happening? Why are we hugging?”, and for some reason that takes her from the verge of tears to full on sobs, and Annie with her.

 

After a few minutes of hugging and crying and a patented Winger speech he forgets the second it leaves his mouth, Jeff walks out of the cafeteria and into the cool night air. He feels sweaty and overwhelmed, with a weird energy like one of Britta’s cats tearing across her tiny apartment at 2 a.m.

God. Britta. He has no idea what the hell he’s been doing today if he’s honest with himself. Proposing to her made so much sense in the moment. And then the moment in the basement made sense in a different way, staring at Annie and wondering if he’d ever loved somebody so much – and now Shirley leaving – he was half-expecting Abed to drop dead just to round out the day.

“Hey.”

He doesn’t jump. He just…shifts his weight slightly in surprise to acknowledge Britta’s very sudden appearance beside him. Normally she’s clomping around in what Pierce had always referred to as her “clunky lesbian shoes,” but she’s either gotten stealthier or he’s going deaf. When she catches sight of his expression, she freezes. “Jesus, Winger. Did you get into my weed?”

Jeff rubs his face automatically. “It’s been a long day,” he says, instead of the hundred things he’s thinking.

“Yeah.”

Sometimes he really thinks Britta might be a good therapist someday. Mostly in the moments when she’s just quiet, waiting for him to say something. He’s not sure if it works on everyone or if it’s just him, but something about her expectant silence, rare as it is, makes him want to –

“You wanna get out of here?”

She doesn’t reply, but he can hear her intake of breath. _Not deaf, then_.

“I know the whole wedding thing was crazy earlier – ”

“Totally crazy,” she agrees a little too quickly.

“– but maybe we could still do, you know. The fun honeymoon vacation part. I just need to get out of here before this place kills me.” He cringes slightly as the words leave his mouth, thinking back to his birthday and hoping he’s not going to get a lecture on suicidal ideation.

There’s moonlight on her hair. It looks almost as blonde as it did when they first met, which is a weird thought for him to have thirty minutes after breaking off their wedding and an hour after he finally confronted his feelings for their friend.

The jangling of her keys breaks his reverie. “Where did you have in mind?”

He stares for a second and then grins, feeling about thirty pounds lighter. “Definitely farther than I trust that piece of crap you drive.”

“It was a freaking symbolic gesture, Jeff,” she says, but follows him to his car anyway.

 

Annie knows the apartment isn’t any emptier than it’s been for the past few months since Troy left. But after Shirley’s news, it _feels_ emptier.

Abed immediately slips into his familiar coping mechanism: TV. She stares blankly at the screen, suddenly exhausted. Her phone buzzes.

It’s Britta. _can u feed my cats for a few days?_

 _No problem,_ she texts back, a little relieved to have something concrete to do. _I still have your spare key. Where are you going?_

 _not sure yet_ is the reply.

 _Who’s with you?_ she types, a sinking feeling in her stomach.

Britta doesn’t respond immediately. Acting on a hunch, Annie opens her conversation with Jeff. _I thought you called the wedding off_.

She’s being ridiculous. Britta’s probably just going off with her old anarchist friends, or on her own. She’s the kind of person who does stuff like that – honestly, Annie’s always kind of admired her for that. Jeff will text back and ask her what she’s talking about and she’ll feel like a silly little girl and wait for the closing credits of _The Breakfast Club_ and when she wakes up it’ll be summer.

Jeff doesn’t reply.

That means one of two things: either he doesn’t want to reply, or he can’t. Because he’s otherwise occupied.

 _jeff’s with you isn’t he,_ she texts Britta, not even bothering with punctuation or capitalization. If Abed was paying attention, he would tell her that’s out of character behavior, but he’s dealing with this in the only way he knows how, and she’s. Well.

She might be on the very edge of falling apart.

 _He said he needed to get away for a few days_.

She stares at the phone in her lap until she thinks it might catch on fire. She feels a million miles away from everything, although she knows rationally that Abed is only a couple of feet away. She can feel his eyes on her now, curious but silent. Shirley’s leaving and Troy’s gone and Pierce is dead and Jeff and Britta are off on their own doing God knows what. It’s like being in the basement again, only a hundred times worse because Abed was _wrong_. Whatever this old-new-new-again thing is with Jeff and Britta, it didn’t go away when they saved the school. It’s out of her hands.

She _hates_ it, and she hates herself for hating it, for thinking that she might matter in this equation. It’s not fair that Jeff and Britta get to constantly run away from their problems but still call themselves real adults, while she has to feel like a needy little girl for wanting them to all stay together.

And it would be worse if she thought Jeff didn’t care about her, but she knows he does. She can see it in his eyes, and she’s sure after all this time it’s not just her seeing the “Annie of it all” when nothing’s really there. He cares about her. It just doesn’t matter.

“Annie? What’s wrong?” Abed asks, as gently as he knows how.

She thrusts her phone toward him roughly, not trusting herself to talk. He takes it, and she gets up to brush her teeth. When she comes out of the bathroom, the TV is off. He’s left her phone on her bed, in the arms of one of her stuffies.

Annie picks it up to unmake the bed and it buzzes again. Abed.

 _I’m not going anywhere_.

 

She doesn’t know where they’re going, and she’s pretty sure Jeff doesn’t know either.

One time when he was really drunk, he’d told her he’d never left Colorado. Maybe that explained this whole thing. Last night, she’d recognized the look on his face from her own, so many times. That desperate look, like one of the lab animals she’d broken out of cages in her wilder days. A need to just get out of here and go _anywhere_. She’d ended up in New York because she realized she liked it once she got there, not because she’d actually intended to go there more than any other place.

Anyway, she knows that feeling of running away instead of running to. Maybe that’s why Jeff wanted her to come along. Probably, unless he’d finally recognized her awesome therapizing skills.

Of course, he doesn’t want to talk about his reasons, but Britta doesn’t need an actual psychology degree to guess. She’s known him for five years, after all, and almost married him more than once. That has to count for something.

He’s scared. Nobody runs like that unless they’re scared. He tried to marry her because he was scared, too, scared of Greendale going away and having to confront the real world or whatever. This was a different kind of scared. Shirley’s leaving, the third group member to go in one way or another ( _R.I.P. Pierce, you creepy mofo_ , she thinks fondly). And Jeff isn’t.

Oh. And with Shirley gone, he’s the oldest one left. Shit.

She sneaks a glance at him, driving stoically. He’s got his aviators on, the ones he thinks make him look really cool. He’s not wrong, admittedly, but – doesn’t he ever get tired of trying to seem cool?

Jeff doesn’t keep CDs in his car and he refuses to let her use his phone and her own crappy phone doesn’t store music. It also doesn’t get service, but she doesn’t need it to know that Annie is cold-shouldering her. So Britta reaches forward and fiddles with the radio until she finds the classic rock station. “It’s not a road trip without it,” she informs him.

Somehow he manages to radiate skepticism even though she can’t see his eyes. “Can we keep the singing to a minimum?”

The commercial ends and she thrusts her hands up in the air. “ _Just a small town girl…livin’ in a lonely world,_ ” she sings. “ _She took a midnight train goin’ anywheeeeeere._ ” She nudges Jeff.

“You have got to be kidding me,” he says under his breath. But then, very quietly, he mumbles along, “ _Just a city boy…born and raised in South Detroit_ … _he took a midnight train goin’ anywhere_. Happy?”

She grins at him, then surreptitiously checks her face for mustard in the mirror. Just in case.

 

Abed is concerned about Annie.

It’s been two days, and Jeff and Britta’s geolocation dots keep moving farther and farther away from Greendale. He doesn’t tell Annie he’s keeping an eye on them. He hopes she’s forgotten all about the tracking devices.

He thinks about their conversation in the basement, when she’d confessed that she didn’t want things to change. He can understand that. Normally, he’d be the one worried about the cohesion of the group, but somehow Annie needs him and she’s the only one not leaving him yet, so he’s just going to worry about her cohesion for now.

The first time Troy was gone, he dealt with it by absorbing himself entirely in the Dreamatorium. He thinks Annie is trying to do something similar, taking control over her (their) situation by perfecting the apartment. He puts up with it for the first day, but when she suggests they go to Home Depot to pick out a new color for the walls he realizes things are going too far.

Also, he likes the color of the walls.

He makes an excuse while she’s looking at swatches and then he calls Jeff.

“Abed,” the other man greets coolly.

He doesn’t bother with pleasantries. “Annie is upset.”

Jeff sighs heavily. “I didn’t do this to hurt her. I just needed to get out of town for a few days.”

 _Out of state,_ Abed mentally amends. “With Britta.”

“Yes, with Britta, but it’s not – like that. I just knew she’d understand.”

“And Annie wouldn’t.”

“Yeah. No. I don’t know, Abed. She expects so much from me,” Jeff says tiredly. “Sometimes I don’t know what she wants from me. It’s complicated, you know?”

Abed doesn’t. Annie can be confusing sometimes but he thinks it’s pretty obvious what she wants from Jeff. And it’s usually not hard to make Annie happy. “When are you coming back?” he asks shortly.

“I don’t know yet. Look, Abed, I know you don’t get it, but this is something I have to do.”

“But I do get it, Jeff. You’re facing a typical mid-life crisis, brought on by the recent changes in the group and almost losing Greendale. You’re on a voyage of self-rediscovery. It’s one of the oldest stories in the book. But you took off without telling anyone and now Annie is here living _New Moon_. You’re making her live a _Twilight_ reference, Jeff. You’re making me _make_ a _Twilight_ reference.”

Jeff is silent for a moment. “That’s the one where she jumps off the cliff, right?”

“She’s trying to repaint our entire apartment.”

The other man swears under his breath. “Okay, I’ll talk to her. But I can’t make any promises.”

“That’s all I’m asking.” He feels some of the tension eke out of his shoulders.

“You’re…a good friend, Abed,” Jeff says. He doesn’t understand his tone, but before he can ask for clarification, the other man hangs up.


	2. is this the place that i've been dreaming of

It’s been five days since she called back and said simply, “I’m moving.” Since then, it’s been a whirlwind.

Shirley doesn’t have too much to pack – multiple separations will do that to a woman. Thankfully, she doesn’t have to worry about finding a place to live, either, and she still has enough of a cushion from Shirley’s Sandwiches to give her a little while to see about a job.

That leaves her with the leaving.

Annie and Abed come over one afternoon, supposedly to help her pack. He sets up some music to make it go faster. She almost forgets the rest of the group isn’t here until “Roxanne” comes on.

Annie’s got that manic gleam in her eyes, the one that would make anyone with sense run for the hills. “We’re going to throw you a going-away party at the school!” she declares, producing one of those giant binders seemingly from nowhere.

“I see,” Shirley says politely. She wouldn’t mind a party. “Will Jeff and Britta be back by then?” Tactfully, she decides not to reveal that she has been in touch with Britta herself. Shirley’s Sandwiches needed someone to look after it, and she knew the younger woman needed the work. She had agreed readily enough via text, but had mysteriously lost service when Shirley broached the topic of Jeff.

“Yes,” Annie says definitively. Abed stacks a box silently. “Would you mind baking for it? I know it’s your own party, but..”

She doesn’t need to think about it. “I’d love to.”

They spend the rest of the afternoon planning. Shirley digs out her church directory from one of the boxes and circles some names. Annie makes some calls, then looks up and says awkwardly, “Um…Shirley? Should we…invite any of your family? I mean, I’m sure you have your own plans - ”

She clears her throat, then says delicately, “Andre and the boys will be out of town visiting his family. We’re going to say our goodbyes this weekend.”

The younger woman’s wide eyes threaten to well up. _Oh, Lord, give me patience_ , she thinks, not without fondness. “Are you…” Annie manages.

“Andre agreed to let the boys come for a week once I’m settled in. After that, we’ll see.” She hadn’t had to fight for it, really. Andre seemed willing enough to compromise as far as the kids were concerned. Maybe more willing than she’d been when she had custody. Her heart pinches.

The other two exchange a look and smile. She thinks suddenly about their mothers. After that disastrous Christmas, Abed had hardly mentioned his, and Annie’s always been pretty tight-lipped about her family. From what Shirley has gathered, though, her mother is critical and unloving. Lord, she hopes her kids won’t see her the same way, absent and uncaring. But at least her friends give her a little hope of them turning out okay in spite of her.

At Abed’s insistence, the three of them take a picture at the end of the day. She asks him what it’s for, but he just gives her that mysterious little smile and doesn’t reply.

 

Talking to Annie goes something like this.

Jeff texts her, because he’s a coward and he doesn’t want to hear her voice get all wobbly the way it does when she’s so mad she makes herself cry.

Also, he wouldn’t know what to say to Britta. He doesn’t know what any of this is. Britta gets on his last nerve but she’s what he needs, somehow, and she’s always seemed to get him on some disturbing primal level. Meanwhile, he’s pretty sure he’s in love with Annie. But – and this is something he always thought was sappy and stupid in romantic comedies – realizing he loved her must have stripped away some of his protective selfishness, because he’s less sure than ever that he could be what she needs.

So he texts her, by the hotel pool.  

_How are you?_

Her reply is immediate. _Fine._

Single word ending with a period. Not looking good.

_Sorry I took off like that_

_Are you okay?_ and he can almost hear her voice, exasperated and worried.

_I’ll be fine, just needed to get away_

_And Britta?_

_What about her?_

_Did you drive all the way out to California just so you could sleep with her? I don’t remember you having to disappear sophomore year._

He types _How did you know we were in California_ , then erases it. Abed. Of course. He thinks back to their conversation, of the tension in the younger man’s voice. _We’re not sleeping together_ , he sends instead, which surprisingly isn’t a lie. He keeps expecting it to happen somehow, and it probably will before they’re back in Greendale, but so far they’ve kept it PG.

Well, PG-13, but they were drunk.

But he doesn’t think this tack is going to win him any favors with Annie. She’s mad at him for not telling her, which is fair, but she’s probably also mad because she doesn’t understand why he left, and he doesn’t have a clue how to start explaining it to her.

Sure enough, she texts back, _What are you doing then?_

_Just trying to figure things out._

_Like?_

_What are you doing after Greendale?_

He can picture her there in the apartment, that cute little crease appearing on her forehead as she responds. _I don’t know, Jeff. Internship, grad school…_

_Exactly. I’m not doing any of that_

_You haven’t taken any more pills, have you?_ Coming from someone else, he’d think it was sarcastic, but he knows Annie wouldn’t joke about that.

_No, I mean, I’m not leaving Greendale. Not permanently, anyway_

She doesn’t reply for a while. He’s not sure if she’s thinking over what he said or if she’s doing something else. Eventually, when it’s nearly dark, she sends, _You’ll be back before Shirley leaves, though, right?_

_I promise._

Annie doesn’t text back, but he thinks that may be her way of forgiving him.

 

She closes her “Shirley’s Party” binder and sighs a little. It’s been good for her to keep busy, but she can’t completely ignore reality. Things are changing. Shirley is going to leave even if she throws the best party Greendale has ever seen (which she will).

She’s been stealing Abed’s phone regularly and looking at the tracking information, the little blinking dots that represent Jeff and Britta. Sometimes she looks at Shirley’s dot too, just to confirm she’s still there with them for now. Troy’s, unsurprisingly, stays out of range. For a while, the dots were getting progressively farther away from Greendale, but tonight they’ve moved closer for the first time. Jeff and Britta are coming home.

Abed pretends he doesn’t know she’s been taking his phone, just like she pretends she didn’t see the call he made to Jeff. Comfortable little fictions that make Apartment 303 a little easier to live in.

They can’t quite cover up all the weirdness with intentional ignorance. She knows he’s been worried about her; he’s been watching her all the time, brow furrowed, like she’s a puzzle he can’t quite figure out.

She’s been working on the party decorations in the apartment. Finishing them earlier today made her feel powerful and in control again, like someone who could take charge of her destiny and not just sit there while her friends went places - California and Georgia and wherever Troy was - without her. She was so excited that she made Abed get his camera when he came in to see them, but when she looked up to make sure he was getting everything, he was only filming her. “You were smiling,” he’d said in his defense. Thinking about that moment makes her stomach flip, and she resolutely distracts herself just in case there’s some other change there ready to blindside her.

Abed’s been watching a lot of 80s and 90s coming-of-age movies lately. She avoids the TV when he’s watching them; they give her anxiety about the future. Tonight, though, he’s watching _Can’t Hardly Wait,_ and she thinks she can stomach that one. He smiles as she takes the seat next to him.

She tries to see the movie through his eyes, the character archetypes blending seamlessly into their lives. She wonders if he sees her in Jennifer Love Hewitt’s character, doe-eyed and left behind by her big-man-on-campus boyfriend. Not that Jeff was her boyfriend, but that probably just makes her more pathetic. And anyway, Jeff isn’t a jerk like this guy is. He’s just confused.

Annie has done a lot of thinking about their conversation. She thinks about messaging him again and saying _I’ve felt that too_ , remembering those nights sitting awake and picturing herself in New York or D. C. living a life so different from her own. Feeling that urge to get away and make a change. She gets it. But on another level, maybe she doesn’t. She’s got penciled-in grad school deadlines on her calendar, a GRE prep book on her shelf, and a half-finished application for an FBI internship waiting on her laptop. And Jeff has a Greendale office, a full load of courses to teach, and a half-empty bottle of scotch.

She turns her attention back to the movie. She sees herself in Jennifer Love Hewitt, even if she doesn’t want to. Abed probably thinks he’s the nerdy guy crashing the party, but she thinks he’s probably the lead because he’s sort of wise and sees through her in spite of everything. She wonders what character Jeff would see himself in.

Maybe none of them. Maybe that’s her problem.

 

They’re coming home tomorrow and Britta kinda doesn’t want to.

This whole thing started out as her doing a favor for Jeff, really. The responsible psychological task of making sure he didn’t do something completely off the wall or just disappear forever. It’s weird, because she could swear they both picked up second majors in making each other miserable, but this trip has been pretty great. She’s had a genuinely good time just _being_ , existing in a space with no pressure to be Britta “The Worst” Perry, sometimes-revolutionary and always-buzzkill. Here she’s just Britta or whatever made-up name she gives the bartender.

In short, it’s been awesome. So of course, she has to fuck it up by sleeping with him.

They’re taking pages out of each other’s books, and she has to say she’s glad that he chose to use the trademark Britta Perry avoidance to deal this time instead of, say, going through with the engagement and then (to pick a totally random example) sleeping with Annie to ruin it. But the problem is things are too perfect and easy between them now. She got him to sing along to Journey, for chrissake. More than once! And they got drunk together, but just cuddling and sloppy-kisses drunk, not depressing, having-sex-just-to-feel drunk.

It was like after all of this craziness, they’d somehow ended up with an actually healthy relationship, and her avoidant attachment just wouldn’t allow it.

Britta’s no master of seduction. She’s sure Annie would do something cute, like change into lingerie while Jeff was in the shower and wait demurely on his bed. That’s not really her style and anyway, Jeff doesn’t take that much work. She just gives him that look over her glass and he catches on immediately. Five minutes later they’re pushing open the door and leaving bruising kisses on each other. Embarrassingly, she’s already gasping his name even though he’s barely touched her.

Then he pulls back and brushes a curl out of her face. Her breath catches like she’s in a Nicholas Sparks novel or something, and she feels warm all over. “Hey…thanks for coming with me,” he says, and she feels a rush of what her stupid first-year-at-Greendale self had labeled “love,” which is a social construct that might not even be real, but _God_.

She’s afraid of giving herself away if she talks, so instead she just kisses and sighs and does all the things she knows he likes, hoping to convey with her body: _You’re welcome_ , _anytime, thank you for inviting me, I may love you_.

When it’s over, he presses a little kiss to her forehead and she doesn’t even want to run away.

 

Jeff and Britta are coming back today.

He doesn’t realize how long they’ve been gone until his phone buzzes and he’s struck with a sudden realization. Instead of texting back, he calls her.

“Abed!” Her tone indicates surprise, and maybe some pleasure, he’s not sure.

“Hey, Rachel. Can we talk?”

Tropes are good. Tropes are familiar.

“Is this the part where you say ‘it’s not you, it’s me’?” she asks.

That hadn’t been the cliché he was going to use, but it’s not too far off-base. “I know I’ve been pretty distant, and that’s not fair to you. But the group needs me.”

She’s silent, and for a second he thinks maybe she’s hung up on him. But that’s not in her character. “The group,” she repeats. “I thought everyone was gone except you and Annie.”

He could say “Shirley’s still here, and Jeff and Britta are coming back,” but she knows that, so that can’t be what she means. “You’re implying something about my friendship with Annie,” he says instead.

“Abed, I’m not mad. I kind of saw this coming. I just want the truth from you.”

He is telling her the truth. Abed thinks for a moment. “Annie needs me,” he says, hoping it’s the right answer.

The exhale of breath tells him it is. “Okay. Good. I had a lot of fun with you, you know.”

“Me too,” he says honestly. She hangs up.

Annie comes in after a few minutes, talking about the party. He wonders if she overheard his conversation. She won’t have a reason to take his phone, so she won’t see that he called Rachel. The only way she’ll know they broke up is if he tells her, but that thought makes him a little uncomfortable. Does he want to tell her because she’s his closest friend and he knows she’d want to know, or, as Rachel implied, does he have ulterior motives?

Abed doesn’t like analyzing himself. He’s the man behind the camera, not the character on the screen. He thinks about the beginning of his friendship with Annie, about waiting in a room for her for 26 hours. Sometimes he feels like he never left that room, like some part of him is still waiting for her.

“You’re making a video for the party tonight, right?”

“Yeah, it’s almost done.” He had cut together a little farewell to Shirley, pictures interposed with little bits of leftover footage from his various documentaries. It isn’t much, but he worked with what he had. Also, it's pretty cheesy, so she would almost certainly coo, “Oh, that’s nice.”

Annie walks off and he opens his laptop. The video is in a finished state, ready to render, but on a hunch he takes out the footage of Annie with the decorations and splices in some other leftovers from the end of the project file in its place.

He opens a new file and adds the decoration footage there. He cuts it down, loops it, and watches it on mute, seeing Annie beam over and over again. Abed saves and closes the project. Maybe he’ll make something of it and show it to her someday, but at least for tonight, he has his friends.


End file.
